


and you can lean on me until your heart don't beat

by calcliffbas



Series: Elements 101 [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bending (Avatar), Bonding, Character Study, Developing Friendships, Ember Island (Avatar), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Light Angst, Philosophy, Post-Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, Pre-Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcliffbas/pseuds/calcliffbas
Summary: “I knew it before. But I think I can see it now.”Zuko and Katara have always seen each other. Though so much has changed, this will always remain the same.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Elements 101 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926430
Comments: 11
Kudos: 123





	and you can lean on me until your heart don't beat

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Gaslight Anthem, ‘[Break Your Heart](https://open.spotify.com/track/399wGH9xEX9k2deLR6Ha4f)’.  
> This one _really_ got away from me, so I really hope you like it. If you want to come and chat about it on [Tumblr](https://calcliffbas.tumblr.com/), please do! :)

> _‘The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will, and the energy to drive and achieve what they want.’_
> 
> – Iroh, ‘Bitter Work’.

“It’s so hot today,” Toph announces.

“How hot is it?” Aang asks.

“Hot,” Zuko answers. Aang pouts and looks at Toph, then Momo, then Katara. Zuko’s not sure what he’s missing there.

“Hot,” Sokka says. “Like me.”

Suki just prods at his shoulder. “You’re _good_ hot. But _this_ …”

She trails off, and Katara makes a slight movement to wave her hand. Suki makes a small noise as cool water floats over her and splashes down on her shoulders.

“That’s _good_ ,” she decrees contentedly. “Katara deserves the world.”

“I don’t want the world,” Katara slurs. “Just the South Pole. S’cool right now.”

“Yeah,” Sokka nods tiredly. “S’ _way_ too hot here. Want snow.”

Zuko does not remember either pole fondly, but he supposes if he had to pick one, he’d pick the South Pole. At least he hadn’t had to go swimming there.

And he had followed up infiltrating the Northern Water Tribe by knocking Katara out and kidnapping Aang, so. You know. All he’d done at the South Pole was, uh. Threaten someone’s grandmother.

 _Agni damn it._ Zuko hopes that old woman doesn’t have any angry warrior relatives ready to threaten him with a boomerang or something. That would really suck.

“We should probably train,” he says instead of voicing _any_ of this.

The ripple of grumbles is noticeable, but it isn’t multiple people asking _Hey, remember when you came to my village and threatened us?_ , so Zuko figures he voiced the right thought.

“It’s too hot to train, Zuko,” Aang whines from his deckchair. “I tried sandbending earlier and I nearly burnt my _feet_ off!”

Toph’s lack of sympathy is evident in the way she snorts. “You barely _touched_ the sand, Twinkle-Toes. You didn’t even get close to a burn! _Trust_ me,” she adds. “Take it from someone who knows.”

Zuko sighs and accepts that he’ll probably be on piggy-back duty this evening. He doesn’t mind it that much.

“Yeah, buddy,” Sokka agrees. “It's only fun if you get a scar out of it. And Katara was there, like, _two_ seconds later to heal you.”

This is a valid point. Aang blushes, but doesn’t deny the charges. “It’s still _hot_.”

“We can’t just sit around doing nothing,” Zuko says exasperatedly. “This isn’t a _holiday_.”

“We’re literally at your beach house,” Sokka points out. This is decidedly _not_ a valid point.

“Whatever,” Zuko grumbles. It _is_ too hot for this.

They sit around doing nothing for a few minutes until Suki huffs.

“We can’t just sit around doing nothing,” she says flatly.

“Suki’s right,” Sokka declares, struggling to sit up and almost falling backwards as the sand shifts under him. Suki catches him with one hand. It’s impressive.

“But we can’t just go out and do _anything_ ,” Aang points out. “It’s too hot to bend in this weather. I feel like I’m going to _faint_.”

“Sorry, Aang,” Suki replies. “But this isn’t a holiday.”

Zuko doesn’t even know why he bothers anymore.

Katara is looking at him. She rolls her eyes and pulls a face. Then she smiles at him.

“Well, we’ve got to do something,” Suki is saying emphatically. “Even if we’re not training. We can’t get lazy.”

“How about Elements 101?” Sokka asks. “That’s cool.”

Zuko is the one to roll his eyes this time. Sokka has taken something Zuko had shared with Uncle Iroh and made it into a game they play when they’re bored. Uncle would probably _like_ that, but it isn’t the _point_.

“I dunno about that,” Toph says. She lifts up her foot, and a fine ring of sand rises into the air around her. It starts spinning as she rotates her ankle. “Is it as cool as this?”

Zuko readily admits that it is not. His admiration for Toph is seconded by Aang, and then Suki.

“Elements 101 is kind of cool,” Suki consoles Sokka, who appears to be sulking at how his idea has been dismissed.

“Not as cool as me,” Toph points out.

“Well, no,” Suki concedes.

“ _Suki_ ,” Sokka whines.

“Sorry, babe.” Suki indicates the way Toph is making the sand rise and fall as it spins. “That’s pretty cool.”

As Toph crows her victory and Sokka protests, Zuko thinks life was so much more peaceful and quiet when it was just him, on his own, in a Boiling Rock cooler.

And it wasn’t as _hot_ then, either.

“How do you go about balancing air and water?” he asks Aang, rubbing his face tiredly and trying to tune out the squabbling pair in the background.

“I think I might need to restore harmony between earth and water first,” Aang says, glancing over at the squabbling pair in the background.

“Ignore them,” Zuko responds flatly. “It’ll be easier.”

He feels _warm_ when Katara giggles at his attempt at humour. He’s spent so long feeling her chill, with the ice in her glare and the cold fury in her words, that to feel _forgiven_ makes him feel like she wields the sun and brings it to shine on his spirit when she smiles at him.

Aang laughs as well. “Air and water?”

“Go on, Aang,” Katara encourages him. “You’re good at this.”

Aang nods and smiles, sitting up in his deckchair to turn towards them.

“Air teaches us to separate ourselves from the earth,” he begins confidently. “So if earth and water are separate…” he tries, before tailing off and frowning. “That doesn’t work.”

Uncle had always allowed Zuko to figure things out on his own. Zuko is aware that he is not a particularly patient person. He decides to compromise by giving Aang a bit of a nudge. “Why not?”

“Is it because earth and water aren’t separate?” Sokka suggested, apparently giving up on arguing with Toph in favour of this new and rising debate. “Or because they are, and air’s, like a counterpart to water, or something?”

Toph is happy to take her argument with Sokka to a new battleground, though. “ _No_ , Snoozles, come on. The ocean separates the nations, but there isn’t, like, a spirit _gap_ between them on the beaches or the ocean floor. Separation isn’t that simple, Sucker. Right?”

“No,” Katara agrees, frowning as she thinks it over. “Sokka’s right, because they aren’t separate. But Toph’s right too – separation isn’t always that simple.”

“Does Air teach separation, Aang?” Suki asks.

Zuko’s kind of glad they’ve already had this conversation.

“Not _actual_ separation,” Aang answers slowly, giving Zuko a quick look. When Zuko nods, he is _beaming_ as he returns his attention to Suki. “More like – knowing what you need to separate yourself _from_.”

Zuko can give him that. “Better.”

“Thanks, Hotman.”

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” he moans, but it’s just _too hot_ to yell.

Aang giggling and Toph’s cackle are joined by laughter as light as the spring rainfall.

“Sorry, Hotman,” Aang can’t seem to help himself. “But, it’s more like… um. What was I saying?”

“Separation,” Sokka gives him the cue.

“Right! Thanks, Sokka!”

“No problem, buddy.”

Aang nods and redoubles his focus. “Right, so. _Separation_. So it’s more like – the ocean is water, but rivers and lakes cover the earth, right?”

“So far, so good, Fancy Dancer.”

Aang smiles at Toph for a few moments before he realises she can’t see it. Then, he bends a small burst of wind her way to ruffle through her hair. She only sends back a small spray of sand at his legs, not a boulder at his head, so Zuko thinks she understood the sentiment behind the gesture.

“So rivers and lakes are water, too,” Aang is saying. “But air _is_ separate from the earth.” Now he’s frowning. “So there’s something about… knowing when to be close, and when to move away?”

“The earth isn’t just solid, you know?” Toph points out, now absorbed in turning the sand into little shapes, like the palace firebenders used to do. “There’s caves and rivers underground.”

Zuko thinks one of the shapes looks a bit like Momo. Toph’s extremely talented.

“Don’t have to tell _me_ twice,” Sokka mutters, affecting a light shudder. “I still remember Lake Laogai. _Yeesh_.”

Zuko can agree with that one. He hadn’t liked sneaking around in the cold and the damp, even without the threat of discovery and the fact of there being a giant body of _water_ over his head. It had reminded him of the North Pole, just, uh. Without the ice. And nobody had tried to blow him up that time, either. And he was actually helping the Avatar that time, sort of.

And after all that, he’d _still_ ended up unconscious anyway, which was actually _ridiculous_ , okay?

“What about what you guys were saying a while ago, about what the monks thought about the spirit?” Katara asks, maybe trying to give Aang a bit of a prompt. “And the body? Is that right?”

“Errrmm…”

From the look on Aang’s face, Zuko suspects that Katara is not very good at hints. She should spend some time with Uncle, he thinks. Uncle’s hints were always good. Annoying and cryptic, but good.

“Air is the spirit? The real you?” Aang asks, although he doesn’t sound at all sure. “Um… and the earth is the body, so they’re separate? Water is the source of life?” He guesses wildly, looking to Zuko for guidance.

It is difficult for him not to throw his hands up and say _Why are you asking me? I don’t know!_. Only the knowledge that Toph would laugh and Sokka would never let him down keeps him from confessing to the Avatar that he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing.

They’ve already been through this routine twice, where Zuko offers up two elements and they all try to figure out how they work together. And he _still_ hasn’t thought to maybe try and think ahead and work out the answer so he knows what to say _before_ he asks the question.

So, instead of admitting to his general incompetence, Zuko does what he always does when he faces an obstacle that has come about as a result of his general incompetence. He makes it up as he goes along, and pretends like he knew what he was doing the whole time.

He suddenly knows how Uncle must have felt all the time.

He huffs a laugh, but it is gentle, and Aang relaxes back into his seat as it becomes apparent that he is going to take it easy on him. “Sort of. Like Toph said, separation isn’t that simple.”

“In case you didn’t hear that,” Toph says. “Sparky was just telling you all that I was right. He’s not wrong, either. He just needed to say it.”

Sokka mutters something, and the beach gives way under him. He squawks indignantly as he is half-submerged in sand.

“You didn’t need to say _that_ , though, Snoozles,” Toph tells him, and there’s teeth in her wicked little grin. “And that time? _You_ were wrong.”

Zuko loves Toph, he really does. But he can’t help but wonder – if Uncle had been here, would he have been able to keep everyone from being so _dumb?_

He clears his throat and tries to remember what he had been talking about. “So, uh, separation. Because humanity is made up of people, right? But it’s also made up of persons. It’s collective, but it’s also individual. A breath is air; the sky is air.” He breaks off and frowns. He looks at Aang for clarification. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“The sky is indeed air, _sifu_ Hotman,” Aang reassures him with a grave expression that looks absolutely ridiculous on a twelve-year-old. “And you are absolutely correct in saying that we breathe air.”

Sokka snorts loudly, Toph sniggers, and even Katara covers her smile with her hand.

Zuko colors. “I just wanted to know if the monks had anything to say about it!”

“Yeah, they did,” Sokka snickers. “They said you’re a _dumbass_.”

He yelps as the sand shifts again, and now Sokka is buried up to his neck.

Zuko _loves_ Toph. He really, _really_ loves Toph.

But he can’t get distracted; this isn’t a holiday. So he nods firmly and turns back to the task at hand. “So, uh, yeah. Collective, and individual. A droplet is water; the ocean is water.” He feels like now is a safe and acceptable time to be able to look at Katara. “You know?”

“I… _think_ so,” Katara said slowly. “They’re the same, but they’re different. They’re _one_ , but they’re not the same. Right?”

Zuko smiles at her, and she smiles back as she realises that, yeah, no, that _didn’t_ sound dumb, not at all.

“So?” Sokka asks.

Katara frowns at her brother. “So, what?”

“ _So_ ,” Sokka draws out the word with an expectant air. “So, what do you think, Avatar Aang?”

Aang frowns. “Um… about what?”

“About Elements 101!” Sokka half-yelps. “The whole reason we’re _out_ here, doing our talking bending thing!”

Suki runs her hand through Sokka’s hair and cups his cheek. “How do you balance air and water, Aang?”

Aang perks up as realisation hits. “Oh! Uh, well, if the sky is made out of _air_ …” He grins cheekily at Zuko.

Zuko scowls. “I _will_ make you do fire squats.”

This threat makes the Avatar pale quite quickly. “We can balance air and water by… by knowing that we’re the same, despite our differences!”

Zuko holds his wide-eyed stare for a moment before nodding. “Good.”

“Great!” Sokka cheers. “That’s _great_. We’re all living _together_ , everything is _connected_ … hey, Zuko?”

“Hmm?”

“Does Ember Island have any possum-chicken?”

He has to think about it for a moment. “Uh – maybe?”

“Oh. How about _swamps?_ ”

Zuko huffs. “We’re a _beach_ island, Sokka.”

“Look, I’m just _saying_ , you can’t be too sure – hey!”

Zuko gets up and walks inside. It’s too hot for this.

…

When she finds Zuko, he is fiddling with a scroll and working up the courage to open it.

“What’cha got there?” He hears, and he’s just glad it’s not Toph, because such a sudden spike in his heart rate _cannot_ be good for his health, and she would _definitely_ have called him out on it.

He turns around to see Katara standing in the doorway to the drawing room. She smiles at him, and he resists the urge to wave awkwardly.

Up until last week, if he had been standing with his back exposed to Katara as she asked him what he was doing, he would _not_ have felt comfortable.

It’s a journey, he supposes. It’s one he’s happy to take.

He shows her the scroll. “One of my mom’s plays.”

He cannot pretend he isn’t a little apprehensive about this. His mother is – yeah. Katara’s mother is – yeah. But he thinks that Katara might be okay if he talks about it. Because she gets that it’s hard.

“Your mom wrote plays?” Katara asks, moving to stand next to him and peer over the scroll.

When he was nine, Zuko had written his mother a play for her birthday. It was about an arrogant swordsman who was turned into a turtleduck and had to defend his pond from an evil landlord who was going to take the land and turn it into his holiday home. The turtleduck won, but he was injured in the fight, and a farmer’s beautiful daughter nursed him back to health. He was humbled by her care, and when her love turned him back into a handsome swordsman, he married her.

Zuko now accepts that his nine-year-old self had not been a gifted playwright. His dialogue had been heavy-handed, and his narrative had been derivative and heavily influenced by _Love Amongst the Dragons_ and the novelty of having Master Piandao teach him swordsmanship.

His mother had thanked him for the slightly-crumpled scroll with a great big smile, and when she and Uncle Iroh had taken Zuko to see the Ember Island Players for his tenth birthday, she had clapped and cheered all through the curtain call for _The Brave Turtleduck_. He thinks he remembers Uncle crying.

In hindsight, Zuko thinks that the Ember Island Players might have been the performing troupe best suited to adapting his play. The quality of the play and of the performers had probably been equally poor.

He shakes his head. “No, she didn’t like writing much. Her, um. Her hand got cramped if she had to write for too long. But she liked this one.”

Katara nods slowly as she reaches out to steady the scroll. He hadn’t noticed his hand had been trembling. Her thumb brushes against his as she leans in to look more closely, and her eyes hold a quiet serenity as she reads the characters.

“What’s it about?” Katara asks.

Zuko tells her that the play is about an Earth Kingdom nobleman who loves an Air Nomad woman. But he must provide for his sick sister and marry to secure his family line, and though she loves him, she does not wish to be tied down. So he watches her leave, because she must be free, and he loves her too much to keep her against her will when he cannot offer her everything she deserves. She watches from afar as he marries an Earth Kingdom heiress, and she weeps as the curtain falls.

He tells her that his mother’s favourite part of the play was the scene where the woman swore her love to the man she must leave behind.

 _Though we may be parted, the same stars guide our paths, / The same earth we do tread, and our love shall endure_.

As he finishes, Katara is kind enough to let him drag a hand across his face and pretend that there is dust in this room.

“When I was seven, we went to North Chung-Ling – uh, Fire Fountain City.”

“We’ve been there,” Katara says. That’s right, he remembers Toph had said… something about a scam?

“Um, yeah. So, we went to Shuhon Theatre, uh, to watch the play,” Zuko ducks his head. It’s difficult to talk about his mother with Katara. Difficult, but good. “She gave me a sticky bun at the interval. And I didn’t really like that scene. I thought it was really sad. And when I saw that my mom was sad after that scene too, I, uh, gave her the sticky bun to try and cheer her up.”

“That was really nice of you,” Katara tells him softly. “It means a lot to people when you reach out to them. Especially when they’re feeling sad. Or hurt, or angry.”

Zuko remembers that after three whole years, Uncle had still remembered the date Zuko had been banished.

Zuko _misses_ Uncle. He misses Mom. He hopes someone in the palace kitchens can spare some bread to feed the turtleducks. “I, um, think it worked. She, uh. She smiled at me, and then she ate it. And she told me she thought that scene was really good. But it’s still a sad ending.”

He carefully rolls up his mother’s scroll under Katara’s watchful eye.

On the way back to the holiday house, Azula had kicked Uncle’s ankles until he had given her another sticky bun. Then she’d split it with Zuko.

“It is really sad,” Katara says eventually. She looks sad. When she’d hated him, he had known it in every look she gave him. “Didn’t she love him enough to stay?”

Zuko hopes that Mai is safe. And Uncle. He hopes his mother is okay, wherever she is. That the stars are guiding her path.

“Uh,” he says. “The writer makes her go, Katara. A lot of Earth Kingdom stories have sad endings.”

“That’s not how it should work, though,” she points out, folding her arms. “She shouldn’t have to do that, just because the writer wants to make her do that.”

“Some writers like happy endings,” Zuko tries again. “Like, uh, there’s this one play about a turtleduck?”

“It doesn’t matter what the author wants,” Katara shakes her head. “It should be about what the characters want. They should be able to decide their story for themselves.”

_Is it your own destiny? Or is it a destiny someone else has tried to force on you?_

“Sometimes we need to be true to ourselves,” Zuko agrees through the lump in his throat.

That answer doesn’t seem to satisfy Katara. Zuko thinks that’s okay. It hadn’t been good enough for Mai either.

“But why didn’t he ask her to stay?” Katara asks, looking hard at the scroll in his hand. “Why couldn’t she be true to him? She loved him, so she would have stayed with him if he’d asked her, right? Or why didn’t he go with her? Did – did he care more about his family than he cared about her, even though she cared so much about him? Couldn’t they find a way to be together, if they loved each other?”

Zuko had gone with Azula because he had forgotten who he was. He had forgotten everything Uncle had done for him, after Uncle had cared so much. He knows that Katara will not understand this, and he admires her for it. He suspects Katara has always known who she is and what she wants.

“Elements 101,” he says instead. “Sometimes you have to love someone enough to let them go.”

When Katara has wanted Zuko to know something, she has always made it very clear. Right now, her face is unreadable. He remembers that there are some parts of the Eastern Sea that the Fire Nation has never charted. They have spent years trying to unravel its mysteries and secrets.

“But sometimes they come back.”

Zuko fumbles with the scroll. He doesn’t want to tear it. It was his mother’s.

“Yeah.” His mouth is dry. “Sometimes, when they leave, they come back. Because they’ve changed.”

Katara looks at him for a long moment, and whatever she sees lets her give him a small, teasing smile.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve called it that,” she tells him. “Elements 101. I thought you hated it when people called it that.”

He allows her to pull the conversation along. She doesn’t push him, not yet, and he appreciates that. So he gives her a side-eye and shakes his head. “Don’t tell Sokka.”

“He’ll be _thrilled_ to know he’s right.”

“He usually is,” Zuko admits. “That he’s right, I mean. I just don’t like letting him know.”

Her smile seems fond. Zuko doesn’t know much about love, but Katara loves her brother. It is undeniable. “Is it just Sokka you keep in the dark?”

Not too long ago, she would have spat those words at him. Now, she is smiling and her arms are light as she shuffles around the drawing room in a lazy, ungainly dance to a tune only she can hear.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” he says. “Misses the whole point.”

Katara laughs, airy and free. “Keep your secrets, then. You’ve probably got a whole _room_ of them in this place. It’s huge!”

Zuko laughs awkwardly. “Yeah. It’s big.”

“Is there, like, a room full of secrets here, though? A secret room?”

“I think there’s a ballroom somewhere,” Zuko half-remembers. “It’s pretty big. But I don’t think we’ve ever used it. We, uh – my father doesn’t like dancing.”

Mai had always thought dancing was boring, and Zuko’s never been very good at it anyway. He shuffles his feet and hopes that Katara doesn’t pick up on his atrocious lack of rhythm. He was better on the tsungi horn.

But _now_ she gives him a gentle push, because she knows him.

“Is it weird for you, being here?” She peers at him like she’s trying to figure out what he’s thinking like it’s written all over his face. For all he knows, it might be. He’s not a very good liar.

Zuko shakes his head. “No. But I could ask you the same thing.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets him have it. “No, I’m okay. I’ve been in the Fire Nation before. It’s just _hot_.”

“Yeah, Sokka said. But you get used to the heat,” he hastens to reassure her. “But it’s – _here_. You know?”

“He’s not here,” Katara tells him, and he’s not sure who she’s trying to reassure.

“I know,” he gives her. He thinks she might want to hear that. “I just – I don’t know. If you don’t feel comfortable here, we can go. Or, uh, if anyone else wants to leave. The Fire Nation isn’t all bad. But, uh, it is all kind of hot.”

She smiles at him. “It’s okay. I know.”

“About the heat?”

“I know the Fire Nation isn’t all bad,” she tells him strongly. Agni, she is _so_ strong. “There are some good people here.”

He blinks. “Oh. That’s – uh. That’s good.”

“I was actually thinking about that when we were talking today,” Katara continues. He’s grateful – Toph would have laughed at his awkwardness. Mai would have rolled her eyes and given him a _whatever_.

“When we were talking?” He asks, trying to place this conversation.

“In Elements 101, remember?”

She smirks at him and he rolls his eyes. “ _Do_ _not_ tell Sokka.”

“Sure,” she hums. “So, I was thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

She gives him an offended scowl. “I’ll hurt _you_.”

“Please don’t,” Zuko says seriously. “You’re a master waterbender.”

“I am, aren’t I?” She preens. “Look who’s a big girl now.”

Zuko cringes and wishes he could give himself a _stern_ talking to, but he lets her have it, because he had been an _idiot_ back then. “You were, uh, talking about when we were talking earlier?”

And he thinks that maybe it’s because he isn’t _as much_ of an idiot now that she is kind and lets him have it. But maybe it’s just Katara’s way, to have compassion on him when he doesn’t deserve it.

In any case, she smiles at him. “Air and water, right? How we’re the same, even if we’re different?”

“I _was_ there for that part, you know.”

“Oh, shut up,” she laughs. “I was just thinking about this village we went to a few months ago.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It was a small little place. By the Jang Hui River?”

A memory tugs at the back of Zuko’s mind. Then – “That was _you?_ ”

“What?”

Zuko can’t believe it. “There was a factory near the Jang Hui River.”

“Oh, really?” She tilts her head. Her eyes are wide and guileless. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Zuko says. She’s acting _far_ too innocent for him to _not_ be suspicious. “There _was_ a factory. Past tense.”

She is fully _smirking_ at him now, and he has to grin back in full respect for her audacity, to _tease_ him about this.

“Was that you?”

She hums. “Maybe.”

He puts the scroll down on the table so that he can run his fingers through his hair. _“_ Agni’s _sake_.”

“Something the matter, Zuko?” Laughter dances in her eyes like the sparks in the firelight.

“Katara, I was having my first day off in a _week_ ,” he whines, “In a whole _week!_ And I was suddenly being pulled into an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss how the war effort would be hampered by the sudden loss of production that factory explosion represented!”

“Oh!” She claps her hands to her cheeks and lets her mouth open in horror. “Oh, how _terrible_ for you. Was your lie-in disturbed, Your Highness?”

“ _Katara_ ,” he whines, but he can’t help but smile along with her.

“ _Zuko_ ,” she whines right back at him. Her eyes are sparkling, and he remembers how the ocean had looked when the sunrise had sent its light across the water this morning. Zuko is no more a poet now than he was when he was nine, but he wishes he was better with his words.

He’s not sure how long he stands there with a big dumb smile on his face, but when he blinks, Katara’s still talking about Jang Hui Village, _never mind_ the _weeks_ of paperwork he’d been saddled with as a direct result of her… _shenanigans_.

“And Sokka wanted to leave, but I just _couldn’t_ ,” she’s saying, and her eyes are alight. “And he was joking about it with Aang, and I wanted to tell them it was _me_ , but I knew they wouldn’t understand. Aang only helped out once he caught me sneaking out.”

“You snuck out?” Zuko asks, grasping onto a part of the conversation that made sense to him. He didn’t know much about blowing up factories – well, he knew the _theory_ , but the Blue Spirit hadn’t done much by the way of arson in _practice_ – but he knew quite a bit about sneaking around.

“Oh, yeah,” Katara chirps, striking a pose. “The Painted Lady,” she intones, adopting a dramatic voice. She sounds like the actor who had played the Dark Water Spirit when Zuko was eight. “A village in need, and a waterbender who could help them. And she did it in secret, though no one could know her or praise her – well, except you, now,” she corrects herself sheepishly, straightening up and reverting back to herself. Zuko likes her better like that, he thinks.

He certainly likes this Katara more than the one who had been _this close_ to putting an icicle through his heart at any given moment.

But she’s smiling at him, now.

“I, um,” he clears his throat and actually shakes his head to clear it. “I didn’t know you would care so much about people in the Fire Nation.”

“Yeah,” she admits with a slight blush and an embarrassed grin. “Yeah, no, it’s not a version of me that I really knew existed before I did it, you know? I just – I couldn’t turn my back on them. I’ll _never_ turn my back on them.”

But Zuko remembers a version of Katara only he knows, with pain and anger and _something else_ in her eyes, who looked at a boy with war and violence and hatred in his blood, and who apologised when a boy with no mother was holding a hand to his scar.

_My face? I see._

_No! No, that’s – that’s not what I meant_.

And he realises that, no, actually, this isn’t a new version of Katara at all. It’s just who she _is_. She fights to protect the Avatar and the balance, and she fights to help those who need her. Even those in the Fire Nation.

Zuko thinks that Katara has more honour than he will ever have.

“I don’t think you’ve ever given up without a fight,” he tells her.

“Well, obviously,” she says, giving him a playful poke. “Got you good at the North Pole, didn’t I?”

Her smile lets him know it’s okay to breathe, it’s okay to keep going, she doesn’t want to fight. “No, I meant that you’re – like, you _fight_ for people, Katara. Even in the Fire Nation. And that’s… you’re _incredible_.”

She takes half a step back, and Zuko has a moment of panic as he fears that he’s said too much. She _hated_ him, and things are so new now, he’s pushed too far too much too soon –

And Katara is stepping forward and hugging him, her arms tight around his waist and her hair tickling his nose, and he holds her tightly and he’s back on the little jetty, she’s ready to _forgive_ him and she’s smiling up at him and her words are ringing in his head like a _prayer_ –

And now she’s stepping back and her eyes are bright, and the smile on her face is maybe what Zuko might have seen if he had chosen differently in Ba Sing Se.

But he came back, and he _knows_ he has made the right choice, now.

“Thank you, Zuko,” she says.

“Um.” _Agni,_ Zuko, use your _words_ – “For what?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard that before,” she remarks, tapping her chin with her finger. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before, not like that.”

Zuko frowns. Confusion is not a new emotion to him, but it is not one he associates with Katara. For better or worse, he always knows where he stands with her. “That it’s a good thing you care so much? It is. You _do_.”

“Thank you, Zuko,” she says, _softly_. “But I mean – you think it’s a good thing.”

“It’s amazing,” he tells her emphatically. “You’re so passionate.”

“Fire is life,” she tells him with a knowing smile.

He grins back, unaccountably happy to see that she remembers that. “Yeah. It’s what drives you, you know? It’s what helps you stand up and make a difference.”

When he says this, Katara looks just as happy as he feels.

“Did you know they don’t let women fight at the North Pole?” She asks suddenly.

Zuko isn’t sure where she’s going with this, but his confusion is momentarily put on hold, because the image of someone telling Azula she wasn’t allowed to do something is unaccountably hilarious. “That’s weird.”

She nods vigorously in agreement. “ _Right?_ But in the Fire Nation, women can fight. Like, Azula, right? She’s a really good fighter. And those two other girls.”

He hopes Mai got out okay. And that Ty Lee’s doing okay, too. “Azula’s probably going to become Fire Lord, one day.”

“They have princesses at the North Pole,” Katara says quietly. “But I don’t think she was – I mean. I don’t think they’d let a woman be the Chief.”

“That’s weird,” Zuko repeats himself. But that doesn’t seem like enough, somehow. He frowns, searching for the words.

“And really stupid,” he settles on. He gives himself a mental nod of approval. That seems to fit.

From the way Katara is nodding along, he thinks it’s the right thing to say. “Right? It’s _so_ stupid. Like, when we got there, Aang got to learn waterbending, but I couldn’t. _What?_ ”

Crown Prince Zuko had trained under the finest firebending masters the Nation had to offer. He hadn’t been the finest student, but still. “Uh, that must have sucked?”

“It _really_ sucked,” Katara agrees. “I wanted to fight, you know? I was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe – I didn’t have a master. Spirits, I used to _cry_ about it, sometimes. The North Pole. I’d spent so long wanting someone to teach me – I’d had to teach myself, and I just…”

She bites her lip. Zuko is silent.

“I’d have given _anything_ to be able to bend,” she whispers. “And Aang just got to learn so _easily_.”

Katara is gazing at a blank stretch of the wall, and she’s wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes are distant, and Zuko thinks he knows what it’s like, to be so far away from where you wanted to be.

Zuko is pleased with Aang’s progress, of course he is. The Avatar must learn firebending – it is the nature of the World Spirit, it is destiny eternal and timeless, and it’s also vital to defeating the Fire Lord right now. So the Avatar must have a teacher. Minister Teruki still liked to remind everyone of how her great-great-grandfather had been Roku’s first firebending master, before he had even been _identified_ as the Avatar.

To instruct the Avatar is a great honour. Zuko understands this, but… it doesn’t make it _easier_ – when Aang performs a _kata_ without any slips, at the first time of asking – to think that Aang is a quick study because he is a gifted teacher. He will not fool himself into thinking he is something he is not. Never again will he forget who he is.

Zuko has had to _fight_ for every form he knows. He has mastered his element in blood and sweat and tears and burning heat. He had known, from the moment his uncle brought him out on deck and gave him a single candle (a single week after he had been _so close_ to maybe being able to perform Swallow Alighting Upon A Branch without any big mistakes), and told him that they were going to start with the basics, that he would master his fire if it is the last thing he ever did.

Zuko thinks that Katara would understand what it _felt_ like to be thirteen years old and still struggling to light a candle.

“So when I got to the North Pole, ready to fight, and they wouldn’t teach me – well. I fought. So, you know, hopefully they’ve changed their minds about girls who can fight.”

Zuko thinks he has misheard her. “You did what when you got to the North Pole?”

She goes a little red and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I… kind of fought Master Pakku?” She laughs nervously. “He was Aang’s teacher, but he wouldn’t teach me because I was a girl. So I got mad at him – like, _really_ mad at him – and I challenged him to fight me.”

Zuko is speechless. He struggles to find the words.

Zuko had been training for six _years_ when he accepted the challenge to Agni Kai. He had thought he could take a _general_. An old man, true, but still a general like Uncle or Zhao.

Katara had not even been a _student_ , and she had challenged a bender strong enough that _the Avatar_ deemed them worthy.

If the whole _world_ stood in Katara’s way, would she even pause for breath as she swept it aside to take hold of her dreams?

“You fought a master?” He repeats the concept, though he cannot comprehend it.

Her smile is a little brighter now, her nod of assent a little bolder. “Yeah,” she repeats, and her voice is a little firmer. “Yeah, I hit him with some water whips and basically dared him to fight me.”

Zuko cannot believe it. But it’s _Katara_. Of course he can believe it. “And they – you beat them?”

“Ugh,” Katara pulls a face. “No. But it was close!” She hastens to add. “And he still agreed to teach me afterwards! I had lessons with him at dawn.” She grimaces. “That wasn’t fun.”

When Zuko had lost to a master, the master had taught him a lesson as well. He has to work his mouth for a moment to find the words. “We, uh. We have something like that in the Fire Nation, too.”

“Like what?”

“When you fight,” he explains, though he is born of fire and the Nation, and he knows that this doesn’t comes close to explaining _anything_ about Agni Kai. “Over a disagreement. And then the winner decides how to settle the disagreement.”

“I think people were surprised that I was picking a fight with Pakku,” Katara tells him slowly. “Do these fights happen a lot in the Fire Nation?”

Zuko catches Katara’s questioning gaze and holds it.

“The ones that truly matter are rare,” he rasps, turning to face her with his two eyes. “And we remember them.”

Toph has asked to touch his scar before. She says it’s not fair that everyone else gets to see it, but she doesn’t. Zuko doesn’t know how to tell her that he doesn’t want _anyone_ to see his scar. That it isn’t something he _wants_ people looking at, or touching. People look at him differently once they see his left side.

He loves Toph, maybe, so he tries to be gentle when he tells her _No_. But she must hear how his heart clenches like it’s been thrown into cold water when she asks him, so she doesn’t push him to let her _see_ it. He hopes she never will.

He lets Katara see him. And she doesn’t look away.

Even if she doesn’t understand, he thinks. Even if she doesn’t understand, he knows she cares. And maybe that’s enough. The way she’s looking at him now. That’s enough.

“I like to think that people remember what I fought for,” she says, holding his gaze. “It doesn’t matter that I lost. It matters that I cared enough to stand up for what I believe in.”

For a moment, Zuko cannot breathe.

It is something he had never spoken about with Uncle. He was too angry. Uncle, perhaps, had felt too guilty.

But perhaps Uncle would have said something like that.

“You’re brave,” he offers weakly, though it is nothing besides what he would say, if he knew the words. “It takes courage to stand up for those who need you to speak out for them. To risk yourself for those who deserve better.”

Zuko knows he isn’t good with putting his thoughts into words. It’s why he spends so much time shaping them. He carves them deep. He must know his truths in his bones before he gives voice to them. And that is why what he offers Katara, he knows he truly means.

The way she looks at him now, he thinks she understands that.

“I knew it before.” Her words are a whisper. “But I think I can see it now.”

He can barely think of the words, now. “What do you see?”

She bites her lip and looks at his mother’s scroll. “The Water Tribes. And the Fire Nation, I guess. How they’re so different… but they’re not really so different at all.”

“I guess we have a lot in common.”

He doesn’t realise what he’s saying until he’s _said_ it, and by then it’s too late for him to take it back. He silently begs her to remember that he _has_ changed.

But Katara just stands there, looking up at him with a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

And Zuko _knows_ he’s not great at this whole friendship thing _anyway_ , let alone a friendship as new and suddenly precious as this one he wanted and fought for and thinks he might _have_ with Katara, but there’s something in this moment that feels altogether special to him, and he doesn’t think he has the words to describe it.

So, naturally, he uses his words anyway, like a complete idiot, and makes a complete mess of it.

“Like, uh. We both sneak around pretending to be spirits.”

And as soon as he’s said it, he wants to bang his head against the door, because for all of Agni’s ten thousand _sakes_ , if Noren had said that when he had met the Dragon Empress, then she would _never_ have fallen in love with him and stuck around long enough for him to recognise her devotion.

But Katara takes one look at the mortified expression that’s surely on his face right now, and instead of laughing at him, she smiles.

“Oh, really?” She says, quirking an eyebrow at him. “ _Do_ tell.”

He mumbles a curse. “I, uh. That was supposed to be a secret.”

“A secret, huh?” Clearly, this had not dissuaded her. “Another secret in your big secret room?”

Zuko wrinkles his nose. “Big secret room?”

“Oh, shut up,” she mutters, pulling a face at him. “Okay, yeah, 'shedding like Appa' wasn't great, but at least it's not 'leaf me alone, I'm _bushed_ ' –”

“What?” Zuko laughs, avoiding the finger she tries to prod into his chest. “Appa’s shedding _what_ now?”

“ _Listen_ , Zuko,” but Katara is laughing too, and she isn’t threatening him this time, she’s standing there smiling and her eyes are alive with mischief. “You just hinted at a _secret_ , okay, and you only get so many secrets before you need to start sharing them. I just told you about the time I blew up a _factory_ – come on, you _owe_ me!”

“Okay, okay!” Zuko grins, holding up his hands. They stand there for a moment, just the two of them. They’re smiling, and Zuko suddenly thinks that if he stepped towards Katara, she might step towards him, too. Maybe that counted as dancing.

They’re friends, he realises. They’re new, they’re okay, she’s _forgiven_ him, and they’re friends. They have time.

So he dares to reach out again. He can be brave, like Katara. Like the swordsman who got turned into a turtleduck. He came back, too.

“Have you ever heard of the Blue Spirit?” He asks, and Katara’s face is a _picture_.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: uhhhh yeah lemme write a couple lines in iambic hexameter that thematically links earth and air like the lovers, but maybe also gives ursa a reason to feel sad about being parted from ikem in a way that, unbeknownst to zuko, makes the words that much more meaningful for her.  
> Also me: **_z u t a r a t h o_**
> 
> [Fire Fountain City](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Fountain_City) (formerly North Chung-Ling) is a prominent settlement on Shuhon Island. Noren, the Dragon Empress, and the Dark Water Spirit are characters in [_Love Amongst the Dragons_](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Love_amongst_the_Dragons).  
> ‘We’re one, but we’re not the same’ is from U2’s ‘[One](https://open.spotify.com/track/3G69vJMWsX6ZohTykad2AU)’. ‘It’s only fun if you get a scar out of it’ is a quote from _How to Train Your Dragon_ (2010). Any other recognisable quotes are from _A:TLA_.


End file.
